How Progressives Betrayed Lynn Stewart

No, youâ€™re probably not radical enough and she makes you feel uneasy because your uninspiring weak approach sounds so silly and corny against her clear courageousuncompromising analysis.

By U-Savior

[Comment: A Death Sentence Delivered]

Where was the massive movement to set attorney Lynne Stewart free?

Time served? Why do we allow our enemies to set the tone, pace, debate, discourse and agenda? It keeps us off balance and off our A game. The 28-month sentence was ridiculous.

Lynne broke a law that was inherently unconstitutional. No one was hurt, maimed or killed by her actions but she has received a death sentence because ten years-- for a 70 year-old woman fighting cancer and poor prison medical care spells death.

In contrast George Bush’s and now President Barack Obama’s war policies that kill people every day. Our inability to secure the release of Stewart supports my assertion that the so-called “movement” has stopped and has functionally collapsed.

Despite all the issues that plague this case and many cases like this is the innate inability for individuals and groups to put aside small and petty differences for the prevailing issues.

Where’s my name on this flier? Whose speaking first and how much time will I get on the microphone or stage? I’m not coming or supporting if this person or group is there. Lynne is not Black; Lynne is not Brown; she didn’t support me; Lynne is too radical...These are the petty issues that emasculate the movement.

No, you’re probably not radical enough and she makes you feel uneasy because your uninspiring weak approach sounds so silly and corny against her clear courageous uncompromising analysis. The back biting and murmuring amongst the agenda-less, corrupted, dysfunctional and disheveled “grass root progressives” has led us to exactly where we are today. Where the wicked can at will kill us in broad daylight, snatch our young, crush our dreams and imprison and, or, kill the best thinkers,speakers and fighters.

We must start afresh. Imagine a world where Mumia, Peltier, The Cuban Five, Mehanna and Lynne are among us. When things collapse it’s not always a bad thing--unless you’re caught in the debris. It’s a time to start unsullied--introduce new and youthful ideas, blood and tools. And to get things right and learn from past mistakes. We need:

1. Zero tolerance for gossip, back biting and slander. Only the facts.2. Individuals and groups will be judged on what they actually do.3. A resurgence of a people-led lunch, literacy and health program.4. Ending all vertical movements-lead by example and everyone should be an example.5. Defy containment.6. Destroy the illusion.7. Crush the Machine.

On the other hand knowing what I know about Lynne there will be a surge in jail house lawyers, prison reform and anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and anti-fascist revolutionaries. One of my catch phrases for the last 25 years has been, "this entire system was never designed to empower us”. Knowing this and being in media, everything I touch is aimed at exposing, indicting and criticizing this system while creatively designing a world without fascists, imperialists and dictators masked in"free enterprise."

Lynne was not the only one indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced; every attorney who would defend the poor; the destitute; the unpopular; the depraved; the insane; the Innocent; the framed; the Black; the Brown; the Red; the Yellow; the radical thinker; the school teacher who teaches Mao, Huey and Avakian; and so forth. We all have been sentenced to a lack of access to this beautiful bright light that made us better every day.

One day Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Powell and Cheney were in jail and needed a great defense attorney. They’re all looking around at each other and Sarah Palin asks, "What happened to that frumpy passionate woman attorney Lynne Stewart?" Cheney looks over at Bush and says, “That’s another thing you screwed up.”

U-Savior is a journalist, media activist and filmmaker. He is the director of Disappearing Voices - The Decline of Black Radio.